Author

Books by Ralph Ellison

Ralph Ellison (1913–1994) was an American novelist, essayist, and literary critic whose first and only completed novel, Invisible Man, won the National Book Award in 1953 and has remained one of the most widely read and discussed novels in American literary history. Born in Oklahoma City, he moved to New York in 1936 and became part of Harlem's intellectual life, working briefly with the Federal Writers' Project. He spent decades working on a second novel that was never published in his lifetime; an edited version, Juneteenth, appeared posthumously in 1999. His essay collection Shadow and Act (1964) is considered essential reading alongside the novel.